


Dreams that won't let go

by blaetter



Series: Christian Names [4]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes (1984 TV), Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: M/M, Onanism, Unrequited Love, pining holmes, self-abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-11-14 03:55:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11199942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blaetter/pseuds/blaetter
Summary: Holmes awakes from a taunting dream and reflects.





	Dreams that won't let go

I shake myself awake, another dream rendering me conscious. Another dream of Watson, of my steadfast Watson embracing me with loving eyes. I frown in the darkness. How many more times must I dream this abhorrence which will never happen? Which cannot happen, I know, and he must know as well, if he had ever put it to his mind. And he didn't, I know; he would never think of me like that. My Watson of Three Continents, who had a wife, who only returned to me upon my own return because she had died, would not think of me in such a fanciful, romantic light. My Watson thinks of me as friend, perhaps even as a dear friend, but as nothing more than a brother. It is this fictitious Watson whom I dream about, who floods my mind as I awake with such acute yearning, like this morning, that I can scarcely breathe. 

This dream was no different than any of the others. It is always the same: We are always safely in our quarters, in our sitting rooms, I on the settee and Watson at his desk. We have a conversation, I know, although the words are lost to memory and are of no real importance anyway. What is important is our meeting in the middle at the end of any discourse; his eyes upon mine, and mine upon his, unbelieving, and dreamlike I reach out for him, wanting him to come nearer. And I know it is a dream because he does, he does not recoil at the thought, as I know he would in our waking hours. He comes to me, and I step to him, and we find each other and hold each other, and it is always more than I would ever have dared hope for. It is in its very essence dreamlike; I recall only the facts of it, sometimes even the smell of him close, of his tobacco and that musk which sets my soul alight. The feel of him surrounding escapes me always upon my waking, as my mind cannot fathom it nor such gentleness even in a dreamlike capacity. What is always worst is the love in his eyes, which I have seen on multiple occasions now, which taunts and teases me and my subconscious, which haunts my dreams. How many times have I dreamt this embrace now? How many more must I endure before I let this wild, impossible, questionable, _criminal_ fantasy go?

Indeed I do know it is criminal, as does every soul living in Britain now. To love a man and be a man yourself is a crime in the eyes of the Church, and to act on this love is a crime in the face of the law. Mr. Wilde has proved that well enough. Even if it were known before, it was certainly known now, now that one of our literary national treasures be imprisoned for his abhorrent passion. There may be Germans acting for us, investigating our condition and even attempting to explain it scientifically, but no one dares trust a German source, even if they could read it, and tolerance is not something we 'Urnings' may ever ask for, let alone hope for. And I do know I am an invert. I keep it well hidden, as needs must, yet still I wonder if my Watson has ever suspected, even if I have made sure any suspicions of his be wholly unfounded. 

To dream an impossibility haunts me, for it stinks of irrationality, and I do aspire to hold myself above the vain, irrational workings of the heart. This morning is no different; I am disgusted with myself once again. For Watson and I are on a case just now, which has halted as we await further evidence. Watson sent me to bed last night, after five days of nonstop Work. I relented, fearing if I did not, he would bodily force me to bed, and that would not do. Besides, I do know he is right about sleep; that much has been proven to me in the many times he has forced me to sleep and with my body's exhaustion sated, I have solved the case nearly immediately upon my rising. 

This case, however, is somewhat different than our more recent cases, for it is our first worthy murder case in months. I estimate, unless some knowledge befalls upon me today, that it will take the better part of two weeks to solve it. It is all a muddle to me, the details, the evidence. This dream does not help clear my head. 

It is still dark outside, surely barely past midnight, and I am in bed after a dream involving an enticing Watson. I find myself at the ready for such an embrace, much to my consternation. I know Watson is upstairs in his own bed, for I hear the soft sounds of him rustling about, changing positions. Many nights I have lain awake simply interpreting each of his bedroom sounds, and because of this study, I know that right around midnight each night, almost with no difference as to when precisely he betakes himself to bed, he tosses and turns to find a new position. I have deduced he moves often from his side to his back, given the fact that this is often his final move in slumber and I regularly awake him for a case when he is sleeping on his back, but I am still not totally sure of this fact. 

Watson moves in his bed above me, possibly to his back, just as I am lying right now. My hand breaches the folds of my bedclothes and finds my cock. Watson. No longer above me, but in my mind's eye, embracing me as in the dream. His arms wrap around me, and for the moment, my sorrow has vanished. I begin to frig myself, spreading my legs, arching my back; now he is above me, in bed with me, watching. My dreams never go this far; one might say I force myself awake before I let them go this far, into this shameful realm. Yet if I am honest, I feel no shame in this act. Be that because of my sensibilities or my questionable moral code, I am not sure, but it doesn't matter now, for Watson is caressing my thighs and muttering words of encouragement, and just like that I am reaching my peak. I reach for a flannel hurriedly, finding one on my nightstand, and cover myself with it. I think of Watson, with those loving eyes he sometimes deals my way, with his lovely face and warmth, his moustache, his smile when I do something right for once; I think of his arms around me, holding me in that dreamworld, and I ache for it in my chest, an actual physical ache, and before I can regard my sorrow for what it is, I spend myself against the flannel, Watson's name upon my lips. 

I lay back, spent, chest heaving, and toss the flannel on the floor next to me. I am alone now, or as I always was, for the perspective shifts; but now I am alone in my bed, with Watson a storey above, sleeping soundly. I know I shouldn't sleep more. Indeed if I were in my right mind, I would rise from bed and begin work on the case again. But I am comfortable, and sated, and Watson shifts above me just as I am reentering the dreamworld, wishing -- just once more, be the Gods ever in my favour, and often enough they aren't, but an erring man can hope -- for another embrace.

**Author's Note:**

> I felt the line about the Germans needed some clarification. Does everyone here know what the Germans were doing from 1860s-1920s regarding homosexuality? Karl Heinrich Ulrichs wrote perhaps the first coming-out letter to his family in the 1860s, even came out publicly around that time, and he argued for the inborn nature of homosexuality, which he called Uranismus. (He named a male homosexual Uranier or Urning, which happens to be my favourite word for a Gay. Also noteworthy is the German invention of the word homosexual itself [homosexuell]; for further information, consult the great Robert Beachy in his 2014 book _Gay Berlin_ or his article titled "The German Invention of Homosexuality".) Also look into Magnus Hirschfeld and his Sexual Institute for more pioneering of homosexuality, namely his notion of the Third Sex (das Dritte Geschlecht). To the extent that Holmes knew about all of this is something I struggle with answering daily. Havelock Ellis and a few others were doing less work than the Germans but in English, and Ellis's and Symonds's _Sexual Inversion_ didn't show up in English until 1897. The line about mistrusting German sources I have taken from a line in E.M. Forster's posthumously published novel _Maurice_ , which he actually wrote in 1913-1914 and which is commonly referred to as the first modern homosexual novel. Perhaps most important: It has a happy ending. (Did you know that Rupert Graves himself starred in the 1987 adaptation of the novel as Maurice's final love interest, and that the film included several nudity scenes, some even of our BBC Sherlock's Lestrade? Now you do.)


End file.
